YELLOW LIGHT BLUES

based on I Ching, hexagram 30

I

I am standing at the edge of the dark pit, angry
staring down into the black hole where something
is certainly stirring, weeping, holding its sides.
For a long time I was a believer, when I closed my eyes
there was something certainly stirring, weeping.
Now it has become the opposite.

I am standing at the edge of the dark pit,
staring down into the black hole and I know
there is nothing below. A wonderful, full knowing
there is nothing. Like a woman, I have become pregnant
and I have felt it growing in the womb of my mind,
and I couldn't wait.
Now it has become the opposite.

I am standing at the edge of the dark pit,
believing there is nothing and there is no comfort.
I could take all the light of the sun, the planets,
the lamps and fires, squeeze it in my fist
and hurl it down that dark deep pit,
knowing there is nothing there.
Now it has become the opposite.

II

I am only the hunter.
It is early morning, the work begins.
Walking out of the hut lined with snakeskin threads,
knotted cords of parchment,
lineaments of a murky tribal ancestry. The sun
rises high above the mountains, staring directly
into my eyes. My father, my father's fathers
rode upon this land like a pen over paper
designing traps and mazes, water snares
and camouflaged devices, ripping meat apart
with their bare hands, vomiting into clear lakes
under a sun like this.
Now it has become the opposite.

I am standing at the edge of the dark pit
as if I were ensnared in the cords of its darkness,
while my brothers walked along the road above.
It was still early morning. Lean dogs sat scratching their faces
snarling, running and chasing anything that moved,
when the dust-blanket of slow nomads began its invasion
at the edge of town.
Now it has become the opposite.
I am standing at the edge of the dark pit,
clutching a lamp to search out a dried-up well, throwing
stones into the deep hollow. Echoes leap and suddenly
there is something stirring, I'm certain, something caught
in the moment of my looking down. My breath is caught
in the suddenness of recognition as it flows and floats before
me,
drowning infant desires of general knowledge
for I know there is nothing below.

A thick-maned lion growls in some shady grove,
he has not found his way to this pit,
but I have remembered him, my eyes have burned his image
into the rockface until my mouth was stopped
and my reflexes fell. And then a studious sleep
has taken over my senses.
Now it has become the opposite.

III

Now we are two.
Our bayonets are poised and directed toward one another,
fixed like a warrior's gesture in paint, arms raised,
mouth open, inaudible screams pitched into air.
In desperation, I have taken to walking around the pit,
circumscribing with my steps the unholy ground.
My brows are wet, my feet are callused, I will go.

It's only common sense. A line of demarcation,
discrimination, a determining line.

In the first place,
it's the point of least resistance.
In the morning, when the sun's rays break through
the horizon, we will be sitting on a rock in the field,
imagining the roar of lions giving chase,
when an armed convoy starts up the hill
with a spontaneous roar of its engines.
In the same way, the sharp crack of thunder's eclipsed
by murderous cannonfire, the sharp whistling
of bombs over occupied land.

In the second place,
it must be made clear, there's no change
like great change, each day is becoming a revolution
rolling east, drawn to the passive sun.

I couldn't care more.
I couldn't care less.

IV

Of those who were neutral in the revolution, most
have been forgotten. I did not think
they lay unknown in some watery grave
in the Pacific.
The trials were beset by difficulties from the start.
Some of the women stripped themselves from their clothes.
A bloated black youth began to set himself on fire.
It was with such protest that the day broke.
Shops were closed for the observance.
When you and I woke, we were entwined
and I was reminded of another, earlier time.
We were never mentioned by the others.

In the third place,
everything withers and finally dies.
Children run because they must, they run the course
of nature, cannot stop running, climbing on each other,
hurling projectiles and obscenities in the labyrinth of nature.
I have to stop.

V

It is not whether my life's in question
but to what degree my life is in question.

In the fourth place,
you can't keep on doing it and doing it
without some suggestion of the end, an overriding purpose
to it all, a clear outright guarantee of a sort.
Don't imagine.

In the fifth place,
I cannot lay my tears down as quick as my head.
The tide is in, the lovers reunited, yet the cries continue.
And I cannot stop them.

In the sixth place,
Love is at the heart of the matter.
To descend into your warm body
I search out a palace more brilliant than heaven.
It is true we have killed time with our love.

I would never expect it.

VI

The sun, the lightning and the fire have appeared
together in the thunder, lightning and the rain.

The southeast is fading in blue ephemeral light
The southwest is yellow on the infinite plain.

To play out an old theme on her instrument, man
Nature wants to die, so she could be reborn again.